A look at Apple’s new developer licensing agreement a few days ago revealed that the Cupertino-based company may have just completely blocked Google’s AdMob from serving ads on the iPhone and iPad. According to the new terms of the agreement, only “independent” ad-serving companies will be able to serve ads. AdMob, because it’s “an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple” (i.e. Google), would be restricted from serving ads on apps for the iPhone. AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui confirmed this on Wednesday in an official response from AdMob. Apple has yet to issue a public statement on this issue, but the true winners in terms of ad networks appear to be independent ad networks such as Millennial Media, Greystripe, Medialets and others who can all continue to serve ads on the immensely popular mobile platform.
Some independent networks have been quick to commend Apple. Yesterday, Greystripe issued a statement on its blog expressing its pleasure at the turn of events. “We are pleased that Apple’s new terms and conditions explicitly allow independent ad networks, like Greystripe, to operate on the iPhone and iPad platforms,” writes marketing director Dane Holewinski. “It confirms the value of 3rd party ad networks that enable developers to earn great revenue with their applications.” Greystripe CEO Michael Chang commented to us, “the new terms and conditions provide an advantage for independent mobile ad networks to secure their share of the rapidly expanding market.” → Read More
Yesterday, All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka pointed out the possibility that Apple could be limiting Google-acquired mobile ad network AdMob from selling ads on the iPhone and iPad platform. The language was a little vague in Apple’s new developer licensing agreement, but indicates that only “independent” ad-serving companies will be able to serve ads. AdMob could be prevented from showing ads because it is not independent as a part of Google, which “develops and distributes mobile devices and operating systems.” AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui told us hours before Apple’s new terms of the agreement came out that nothing good would come of disallowing AdMob to serve ads. But today the company has officially responded to the potential issue.
Hamoui confirmed that the current Apple developer terms “would prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google’s advertising solutions on the iPhone.” AdMob is wisely using the developer angle to help boost its case. The post states that the new terms would hurt both large and small developers in terms of revenue. Essentially, competition is good for developers because the more ways they have to make money, the better. → Read More
Today, I had lunch with AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui just before he went onstage at the CM Summit in New York City. The FTC finally approved Google’s $750 miillion acquisition of his mobile ad startup on May 27. He told me about the long ordeal of going through that approval process, turning Apple into a competitor, and how AdMob will fit in with Google’s other advertising businesses. Hamoui will be running all of mobile advertising for Google. In the video above, which I shot outside the conference, he touches upon these topics.
I asked him about Apple’s new policies as written in their licensing agreement for the iPhone 4.0 OS and its restrictions on sending phone data to third party providers. Hamoui is taking a wait and see approach, but told me it could be potnetially devastating to AdMob’s iPhone business. John Battelle asked him the same question on stage, “Are you concerned Steve will take his toys and go home?”
Hamoui response: “They haven’t enforced that yet. If enforced as written, it would be complicated or near-impossible to serve relevant advertising on the iPhone platform.” → Read More
Fresh off the closure of its acquisition by Google, mobile ad network AdMob is officially launching an iPad-specific SDK to allow app developers to use the network’s ads within their apps. The SDK was previously in beta but is now available to the public.
AdMob says that the SDK is unified across all devices running the iPhone OS, which makes it much easier for developers, who can can download one binary for development across all Apple iPhone OS devices – iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The new also SDK supports two ad formats in native iPad applications: text & tile ads and image ads. Both of these ad formats are available in the three IAB standard ad sizes: 300×250, 728×90, and 468×60. → Read More
Over six months after announcing its plans to acquire leading mobile ad network AdMob, Google has finally closed the deal. The news comes a week after the FTC unanimously approved the deal, after holding it up for months as it decided whether or not to block it on antitrust grounds.
When it finally reached a decision, the FTC pointed to Apple’s recent entry into the mobile ad market with iAds as evidence that there would still be plenty of competition in the nascent mobile advertising space (an argument that we made before, as did many others). The FTC may have also been swayed by blog posts from developers questioned during the FTC inquiry who felt that the deal should go through. Some developers also wrote that they felt like the FTC had an agenda and that they were being pressured to say things that would hurt Google’s cause. → Read More
Over six months after announcing its plans to acquire leading mobile ad network AdMob, Google has finally closed the deal. The news comes a week after the FTC unanimously approved the deal, after holding it up for months as it decided whether or not to block it on antitrust grounds.
When it finally reached a decision, the FTC pointed to Apple’s recent entry into the mobile ad market with iAds as evidence that there would still be plenty of competition in the nascent mobile advertising space (an argument that we made before, as did many others). The FTC may have also been swayed by blog posts from developers questioned during the FTC inquiry who felt that the deal should go through. → Read More
The Federal Trade Commission just announced its approval of the $750 million acquisition of mobile ad network by Google. From the release which is embedded below: “The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google’s proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks.” Google was quick to put up a blog post of their own, praising the FTC’s decision. You can also read AdMob’s statement here.
The FTC has taken a particularly close look at the deal on antitrust grounds and even extended the timeline for the investigation. Google on the other hand, has made a significant lobbying effort for approval. → Read More
For months, the Federal Trade Commission has been considering whether or not to block Google’s acquisition of Admob for $750 million, which was announced back in November. As part of its investigation, the FTC has been reaching out to developers of mobile applications to get their thoughts. The only problem? Numerous developers and even some Admob competitors are coming out to say that they support the deal, and some of them believe that the people involved in the investigation are either unqualified or have an anti-Google agenda. The latest to join the fray is Echofon, which has just written a blog post likening its conversations with the FTC to an interrogation.
The post was penned by Chika Watanabe, who writes that she has spoken with the FTC for at least five hours about the deal. Overall, Watanabe writes that “the FTC seemed to have a (strong) agenda”, as it pounced on things she said that could possibly be used against Google. → Read More
Yesterday, Admob served its 200 billionth mobile ad, only nine months after serving its 100 billionth ad. The mobile ad network is still growing strong, with 160 employees and an annualized revenue run-rate above $100 million.
But ever since Google outbid Apple with its $750 million bid to buy AdMob, the original growth engine for AdMob—iPhone app ads—has been stalling. As you can see by the chart above showing share of worldwide ad impressions across the AdMob network by operating systems, the iPhone peaked as the biggest smartphone source of AdMob ads in November, 2009, right before the Google deal was announced. Since then, it’s been a slow but steady decline from 54 percent to 46 percent in March, 2010. Fortunately for AdMob, Android is picking up the slack, rising from 16 percent of ads served to 25 percent, during the same period. In the U.S., Android is already contributing more ad impressions than the iPhone for AdMob. → Read More
For anyone still wondering whether Apple plans to give its new iAds a competitive advantage over other mobile ad networks on the iPhone and iPad, just take a look at the slide above. It was attached to an email sent to an app developer from a Quattro Wireless sales rep which I obtained (Quattro is Apple’s recently purchased mobile ad network). The email starts off:
We’re excited to announce a brand new program launching this month called ViP (Verification of iTunes Purchase).
The VIP program is aimed at app developers who use iPhone ads to drive downloads and purchases of their own apps. It will tie the ad directly into purchasing data from iTunes, letting app developers measure the conversion rate of ad impressions to downloads. → Read More
The Federal Trade Commission will decide whether or not to approve the pending Google-Admob acquisition in a meeting tomorrow that will include the commissioners and the FTC chairman, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter. The $750 million deal was first announced in November 2009.
The FTC has taken a particularly close look at the deal, and Google has made a significant lobbying effort for approval. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal reported that the FTC was considering challengine the deal: “Discussions with FTC staff members suggest the agency could be preparing to block Google’s $750 million agreement to buy AdMob on the grounds it would shrink the mobile in-application advertising market from three to just two key players…”
But what hasn’t been clear until now is exactly when the FTC would make its decision. That time is tomorrow, says our source, and says that Google is prepared to fight a FTC blocking of the deal in court. → Read More
The Federal Trade Commission is seriously thinking about blocking Google’s proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob on antitrust grounds. A decision on whether this is where the government will make its antitrust stand against Google is expected in the next few weeks. But before the FTC makes that decision, it might want to take a look at Apple’s new licensing terms for iPhone developers. If I were Google’s lawyers, that would be Exhibit A to show how little market power AdMob and Google really have when it comes to mobile advertising.
In order to show that an AdMob-Google combination raises antitrust issues, the FTC would need to show how it would impede competition. Last year, the mobile ad market share of Google and AdMob combined was an estimated 21 percent. Google’s portion is mostly in mobile search, whereas AdMob’s is mostly in mobile apps, specifically iPhone apps. → Read More
AdWhirl, the AdMob-owned service that allows mobile developers to quickly switch between mobile ad networks without having to update their applications, has just given developers even more flexibility: they can now include as many ad networks as they want, including both the default built-in set of networks and any other networks they want to integrate themselves.
This comes as a followup to AdWhirl’s decision in December to Open Source its iPhone SDK and server, which was the first time developers could use ad networks that weren’t already built into the service. However, up until now there was a catch — devs could only use one new ad network in addition to the default set. Now they’ll be able to include as many as they want. → Read More
As we noted earlier, mobile ad network AdMob has released its monthly mobile metrics report for March, which takes a close look at Android OS traffic. One interesting stat that was hidden in the report was that Android ad traffic overtook iPhone traffic in the U.S. for the month of March.
According to the report, Android traffic in the U.S. increased to 46 percent of operating system share compared to 39 percent for the iPhone operating system. Worldwide, the iPhone OS still took the top spot, taking 46 percent of the OS share, with Android phones seeing 25 percent of impressions. AdMob measures mobile ad impressions, which is a proxy for overall traffic. → Read More
Mobile Ad Network AdMob has released its monthly mobile metrics report for March, which takes a close look at Android OS traffic. In March 2010, there were 34 Android devices from 12 manufacturers available to consumers. In AdMob’s network in March 2010, 11 devices accounted for 96 percent of Android traffic, up from two devices in September 2009. The three primary versions of the Android OS all drove significant traffic in March 2010 – Android 1.5 (38 percent), Android 2.0/2.1 (35 percent) and Android 1.6 (26 percent). Motorola and HTC were the leading Android device manufacturers with 44 percent and 43 percent of respective traffic.
According to AdMob, Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March 2010 generating 32 percent of Android traffic, while the Google Nexus One drove only two percent of Android traffic. It’s surprising that Google’s Nexus one generates so little traffic, considering Google’s claims of profitability and success from the device. → Read More
The FTC is reportedly gearing up to challenge the Google-AdMob deal, due to anti-trust regulations The search giant acquired the popular mobile advertising network for $750 million last Fall. Reports emerged today from Reuters’ sources that the FTC’s lawyers will recommend that the Commission block the deal. We’re not surprised, considering that we heard that Google was taking the unprecedented step of reaching out to AdMob competitors to rally their support around their acquisition of the company, in response to rumors that the FTC could block the deal. Consumer groups have also lobbied to block the deal.
According to a Wall Street Journal report yesterday, the FTC started assembling a legal team to prepare to block the deal. And the FTC is soliciting statements from the same competitors that Google is lobbying, in an effort to get these companies to testify on the regulatory ramifications of the AdMob acquisition. → Read More
A couple of weeks ago we reported that Google was taking the unprecedented step of reaching out to AdMob competitors to get their support around their acquisition of the company.
The FTC is looking very hard at the deal, and some consumer groups have lobbied the FTC to block it. Despite the fact that Apple acquired AdMob’s closest rival, Quattro Wireless.
But at least one of AdMob’s competitors, 4INFO, is supporting the deal (see our recent interview with 4INFO CEO Zaw Thet here).
In a letter to the FTC, Thet says “I have no concerns about my ability to compete effectively after the transaction closes,” and “this is such a rapidly growing and evolving industry that I have no concers about Google and AdMob dominating the space.” → Read More
Although the iPad apparently lacks Flash, that doesn’t mean that rich media won’t be able to function on the device. Yesterday, we heard that Brightcove will stream video in an HTML5 video player as opposed to a Flash unit. And today, Greystripe is announcing that it will be bringing its rich media iFlash ad units to the iPad in May.
Greystripe has been allowing advertisers to use Flash-like technologies in their iPhone advertisements for some time now. The network essentially takes ads created using Flash and transcodes them to run on the iPhone and now the iPad. The technology changes the nature of the Flash ads on the front end but the rich media ad behaves the same way. Greystripe claims that its “iFlash” ads see higher clickthrough rates than even online campaigns, with average CTRs above 1%. And Greystripe says that its mobile iFlash ads increase awareness of a brand and intent to purchase, watch or recommend a particular brand. Brands using Greystripe’s mobile ads include HP, Burger King, Axe, Dunlop and LeapFrog. → Read More
According to AdMob, smartphones accounted for 48 percent of its worldwide traffic last month, up from 35 percent in February 2009. Dominant still is iPhone OS, which has increased its share of smartphone requests on the AdMob network from 33 percent in February 2009 to 50 percent in February 2010. Android, however, is the fastest-growing these days.
Symbian is the big loser: while it accounted for 43% of AdMob’s smartphone requests in February 2009, it only reached a 18% share last month. → Read More
AdMob, the mobile advertising unit bought by Google last year for a whopping $750 million, is upgrading its platform today. The company is launching new SDK’s for Android, Flash Lite and iPhone platforms and is also rolling out a number of new publisher tools, including a new publisher dashboard, an enhanced Reporting UI, a new Reporting API and Server Side SDK Controls.
The new Android SDK allows for expandable canvas and multi-panel banner advertisements on Android devices, with the updated iPhone SDK featuring performance enhancements and additional server side flexibility. The new Flash Lite SDK, which is in beta, enables monetization with CPC text ads. And AdMob is rolling out a new adaptive mobile ad unit, which allows for a banner sizes ad unit to remain a constant size as consumers pinch and scroll through a Web site that’s designed for a PC screen on their mobile device. → Read More
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